About Us

“Hey, this is Nic Penrake and thanks for dropping by. So this is our About page – which as well as being about us is also about… What We Can Do For You. So…

…do you have a brief for a TV commercial, a viral, do you need some incisive corporate content for your website? Then give us a call, ask us to pitch for your business. You might surprised at the value a lean, highly experienced outfit can deliver – and at a price bigger names just wouldn’t be able to stomach.

As for me, I’ve been directing shorts and writing ad copy since the late nineties. My ad agency experience covers just about every kind of media known to mad men.

As well as my own short films, I have produced and directed corporate events for major blue chip clients, such as British American Tobacco; written, produced and directed a play and had 3 novels published.

My feature scripts Burning, a black comedy, Ice In The Blood, a horror/thriller, Mud Boy, based on the short film and When The Money Runs Out, a feature based on another of my short films (Bunking Off), are all on a slate of films with Film Engine. I also now head up Development at Film Engine.

On the documentary side of things, as director I am in post on a very moving 25 minute documentary on people trafficking called Road To Recovery, working alongside Default Media’s producer Robin McGlashan.

Before you leave the site, do take a look at one or two films. You might then simply want to add us on Linkedin. Or you may have a job for us to consider. Whatever the case may be, if you’ve got this far, please don’t be hesitant about reaching out.”

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phil taylor

Just weeks after an auspicious meeting in Cannes 2013, Nic teamed up with producer Phil Taylor to produce a slate of Nic’s screenplays that includes: Burning, When The Money Runs Out, Mud Boy and Ice In The Blood. For their first four films together they are using SEIS finance in order to minimise the risk for investors and maximise the potential for a profitable return.

Phil Taylor has helped finance over £100m for British films in the last 10 years. Through EIS schemes he has raised in excess of £30m, for projects such as the new Captain Scarlett TV series and, in 2009, the feature film Twenty8K. In 2013 he founded Film Engine as a vehicle for producing profitable low budget feature films.

For a major part of his career Phil ran a Wealth Management business, during which time he helped raise finance for some major feature films, including Alexander with Colin Farrell, Oliver Twist (2005, Ben Kingsley) Long Weekend, The Courier and Bait 3D (2013).

Phil also raised funds via the Enterprise Investment Scheme to fund a remake of the 1960′s successful kids TV series Tales of the Riverbank. This is now in pre-production in Canada and due for completion in 2014.

Phil is Executive Producer on the comedy Run For Your Wife, starring Danny Dyerand EP on a documentary feature film about Jane Austen, due for release in 2014.

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jim meacock

Composer Jim Meacock has worked with Nic Penrake on a number of short films, including Recorded Delivery, which was selected for the prestigious LA Shorts festival of 2003 and Mud Boy, which appeared on BBC HD Shorts 2011. He is currently attached as composer to the feature version of Mud Boy, now in development at Film Engine UK.

Jim won much acclaim for his score for the landmark BBC TV series The Planetsfor which he received a nomination for an RTS award. This was his second nomination – his first, the previous year, was for the title music to the BBC TV sports talk show On Side. Other commissions for title music include The Daily Politics and This Week, BBC Sports Personality of the Year and the BBC BAFTA Tribute programmes

With his score for the feature film S Club: Seeing Double (Columbia Tristar) Jim combined a commercial dance sound with a more traditional narrative score. In 2005 Jim provided the music for Lynda La Plante’s ITV1 drama The Commander.

Other work includes the Tiger Aspect documentary Virtual History: Secret Plot to Kill Hitler, which won an RTS Award in 2005; the controversial BBC1 drama documentary The Virgin Mary; A Queen’s Kingdom a 2 hour BBC special documentary to mark Golden Jubilee year.

Jim has also worked in theatre and the fine art world. White Cube artist Runa Islam commissioned him to score her two-screen film Scale (1/16 inch = 1 foot) which was selected for the 2003 Istanbul Biennial.

Before becoming a professional composer, Jim spent five years at the BBC as a cameraman – working on everything from Top of the Pops through Eastenders to Harold Pinter plays. This experience has proved invaluable in the discipline of writing music to film and in communicating with the director.

Check out one of Jim’s latest tracks, White Water, a strings piece fit for a very exciting action sequence!

Shiona Penrake

At 17 years of age Shiona Penrake won Best Young Filmmaker Award at the Reed Short Film Competition, 2014, with her directing debut The Paintbrush (the short version).

Shiona has been editing since she was seven. After a couple of lessons with editor Stuart Gazzard, a friend of her dad’s, she never looked back. From Final Cut she went on to learn Avid and, more recently, has taken to using Premier Pro, which she prefers to Final Cut.

She has written three short film scripts and co-written three with her father, Nic Penrake. In 2012, a month after her sixteenth birthday, Shiona directed her first short film, The Paintbrush, featuring Jay Penrake as the lead, Lois Winstone as the mum and Elio Ruggieri as the dad. The film elicited a welcome mix of astonishment and praise from experienced industry professionals and has now been sold to Shorts International for worldwide release.

Through July and August 2012 Shiona was deeply involved in the making of short films The Prowler and Bunking Off. As well as helping in the art department with Photoshop, she worked as a runner on both films and then as editor.

In October 2012 Shiona was one of eighteen 16-18 year-olds to be offered a place at BFI’s Film Academy. She and her fellow students were put into three groups of six and she was given the role of director for the horror short they were tasked to make.

In April 2013, she joined 53 16-19-year-old filmmakers on the NFTS Campus course run by the BFI Film Academy. She was given the role of script supervisor on-set and co-editor in post. Her team made the film, Teach Me, about a city banker turned social worker who has to face his own anger, frustration and feelings of violence when provoked by an aggressive and manipulative teenager. The film was directed by Rabbia Hussein, 19.

January-February 2014 Shiona was chosen to join ’25 of the most talented and committed young writers living in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to take part in an intensive residential training programme that kick-starts a career in the film industry’ – the BFI Film Academy Course Residential Programme in Screenwriting.

As well as working for her dad and on her own projects, she is actively looking for work as editor on shorts, commercials, ads and promos and welcomes approaches from other filmmakers in the UK and abroad.